1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and system for enabling a user to get information about entities of predefined categories.
In particular, the present invention relates to a method and system for enabling a user to get information about entities of predefined categories, by using the social network of the user as a source of recommendation.
2. Description of the Related Art
A social network is a social structure made of nodes—which typically are individuals or organizations—that are tied by one or more specific types of relationships.
US 2005/0171799 states that a social network typically comprises a person's set of direct and indirect personal relationships. Direct personal relationships usually include relationships with family members, friends, colleagues, coworkers, and other people with which the person has had some form of direct contact, such as contact in person, by telephone, by email, by instant message, by letter, and the like. Indirect personal relationships typically include relationships through first-degree relationships to people with whom a person has not had some form of direct contact. For example, a friend of a friend represents an indirect personal relationship. Such personal relationships can be utilized to find and develop relevant connections for a variety of objectives. US 2005/0171799 discloses a method to automatically recommend to the user a set of seed contacts that the user may employ to invite to join their social network.
US 2004/0181540 discloses a system and method whereby a user can learn of users with whom he/she is socially-related. This document states that this may be implemented by having nodes maintain logs relating to connections they have been involved in, and considering two users to have each met a third user when the node logs corresponding to those users each indicated connection with the node of the third user.
Bakos et al. (“Phonebook search engine for mobile p2p social networks”, in Proceedings “Database and Applications” Conference 2005, pages 210-215) discloses a recommender system to answer questions like “I need a reliable plumber close to my house”. According to the solution proposed by the Authors, each mobile phone will store a user profile and a contacts table. The user profile consists of three different types of data: personal data, professional information and interest. The contacts table corresponds to the standard address book data of the mobile phone. If a user wants to find a professional, he/she may introduce the desired query in his mobile phone (step 1). In the next phase (step 2) the mobile phone sends the query to predefined contacts of the contacts table and with a predetermined time to live (TTL). The mobile phones receiving the query check a match with their user profile (step 3). If there is a match, a query hit message is returned to the originator (step 5). In all cases, if the TTL is not expired, the query is forwarded to the contacts of this mobile phone (step 4). The query will reach all the phones within the range TTL of contacts of the originator and all query hits will be returned to it. Messages between mobile phones are transferred by using short messaging (SMS).